


slash and burn

by scullyseviltwin



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, post-s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-03 00:37:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12737499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyseviltwin/pseuds/scullyseviltwin
Summary: "He knew how to do this once. He knew the ins and outs of the dance, knew what to say and how to act. But years of relentless pain had taken that away from him, scrubbed him down until he was hollow. Now he just feels wrong-footed, and alien, a human being who doesn’t quite think he deserves happiness."





	slash and burn

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Emily, Amanda and Meghan for their assistance, and for being forceful about what to slash and burn in this piece.

Installing K&T wiring wasn’t something Jim Hopper ever thought he’d have to do, that’s for damn sure. 

 

He acknowledges how ridiculous this is, as he holds up a package of porcelain grounding units and inspects them. He needs twelve, and this bag only contains eight.

What in the hell is he going to do with four extra of these damned things? This is Hawkins...

Grunting, he tosses it in his shopping cart and maneuvers one-handed onto the electrical boxes. If he doesn’t electrocute himself, it’ll be a damn miracle and he’s honestly not sure where the hell he’ll have to go to get an amp box, but he’s not paying Dougie Shawn to install the thing; that’d be an arm and a leg.

So now, after many missteps and subtle shocks, he knows how to install electrical wiring, a skill that he’s sure, being a resident of Hawkins, he may need to put to use again. 

He’s lucky he’s a member of law enforcement, otherwise, he could certainly expect Harry Edelstein of Edelstein Hardware to pry into why he’s been purchasing so much lumber, pvc pipe, yards and yards of wire. Between the cabin and Joyce’s place, he hazards a guess that he’s built an entirely new house. It’s amazing what damage supernatural forces can do to a brick and mortar structure.

So he’s been going around to Harry’s once or twice a week with his list of building materials needed to fix everything up. It’s amazing what he’s managed to do with the assistance of someone who can move large objects with her mind. It’s been a blessing and a curse; he can get a large amount of work done without divulging the location of their cabin, but he’s also at the mercy of a preteen who thinks the slats look better going one way rather than the other.

It’s been a bit of push and pull, but he’s enjoyed every second of it, working with her, teaching her, learning from her. If he has to put up with a few “But why is it like that?”s, he’ll take it. 

He looks down at the supplies he’s using to patch over the gaps and holes in Joyce’s house, in the cabin, and the metaphor forms in his head before he’s even really aware of it. It’s a bit nail on the head, and for a moment he’s embarrassed that it’s taken him this long to reach this point: he can’t live like this anymore.

He can no longer live this day-to-day existence, taking things as they come and putting patches on parts of himself that should just be fucking fixed. Properly. Totally and completely. He can’t function like this anymore, as though a transient in his own life.

They, he reminds himself, shaking off the odd sense of urgency that rises to his throat, makes him feel a bit manic. Damn it, the two of them. They can’t live like this. They shouldn’t live like this. 

The whole “demons from another dimension are here to destroy our world,” he can live with; he’s not sure exactly why, but that hadn’t been an entirely hard pill to swallow. But the way he’s been treating his body, the alcohol, the cigarettes, the convenient, greasy food he intimidates his deputies into “voluntarily” sharing with him whenever he gets the chance… if he’s going to be prepared for when it happens again-and it will, he’s almost damn positive of that – he can’t continue destroying himself.

He needs to be healthy, strong, capable, especially if he means to do this properly, this parenting thing. Take two, he thinks with a pang of guilt. 

He did this once; he was a good father. He can be again, he’s sure of it, but it’s such an uphill battle that he very nearly already feels beat. This is going to require him to be even more attentive, more careful and cautious, always on the lookout. Because she isn’t a normal kid, and there’s no guidebook for this.

Things need to change, big time. He can’t be feeding an eleven year old girl pure sugar, thinking that he’s getting by; that one just goes without saying. And certainly not if she’s going to be staying with him for the foreseeable future. 

There’s a wave of white-hot anger that comes with the thought-another of his flaws he knows needs attention, his abject rage-that slides into his brain, at the thought of someone else coming for Elle. For Jane. Shit, he needs to get that straight. Jane, her name is Jane. He’s already followed the girl very nearly to hell; there’s little he wouldn’t do now, to keep her. Happy and whole, try and give her the sort of life he’d once dreamed of for Sara. 

It’s a dangerous sort of pipedream, to think that he can keep a girl with her unique abilities safe and provided for, but fuck it all, he’s going to try. For once, he’s going to put in the damned effort that’s required; he’s going to face his challenges head on. And without the assistance found at the bottom of a bottle. 

Just the thought triggers a craving, but he shoves it aside with a dogged sort of determination. Jim Hopper isn’t entirely sure how to get better, but he’s trying, god damn it. That has to count for something. He tosses the supplies he’s purchased into the cab of his truck, carelessly, imagining that he’s burying his dark thoughts beneath the construction materials. It doesn’t work, but he gives himself a pat on the back for the attempt.

The trunk closes with a thud, and a long, heave of a sigh escapes him. God, does he feel wholly and completely fucking tired. Tired of just about everything. 

There’s a deep sort of sadness, too, in the marrow of his bones, wringing him out emotionally. It slips out, unencumbered, at times like these. When he’s tired, when he’s using up the last of the patience, the final dregs of energy that he has. It creeps in, tendrils ceasing his heart, reminding him of the various missteps he’s taken throughout his life. It’s selfish, downright stupid, but when he’s around Jane, it abates, just slightly, it ebbs away and his heart feels like a warm, beating thing again. 

When he’s around Joyce, too, but that’s something else altogether. 

Climbing into the truck, his fingers itch for a cigarette. He’s thrown out the pack he keeps in the glove compartment, and the one that he’d tucked beneath the seat. There’s no nicotine to be found, and as the ire rises in him, he reminds himself that this is for his own good, that this is something that he has to do.

He puts the truck into drive.

The construction materials slide about the back, rattling and clanking as the wheels crunch over dirt and asphalt. 

\---

She answers the door wearing a sweater that is two sizes too large for her. 

“I don’t wanna be an asshole, but your place looks like hell,” he says as he rearranges his grip on the bags in his arms. It’s a testament to how well he knows her that he can deliver a line like that; Joyce rolls her eyes, takes a step back, paper crunching beneath her tennis shoes. The place looks like hell because it’s been through hell. Twice now.

He almost makes an offhand suggestion that she move, but that would be stupid and callous; he’s aware enough of the situation to know that, at least.

“Hey, Mr. Fix It, what does that say about you, then?” she teases, and instantaneously, some of the pressure he feels at his temples abates. Just like that. 

There’s a yearning in him, something soft and too big for his chest, that wants to take her away. She and Will and Jane and Jonathan and just take them somewhere safe, somewhere away from all of the chaos, away from the reminders. There’s no separating the memory of what has happened to all of them over the past two years, from this house. Idly, he wonders about mental health, about how it can’t be good for Will to have to stay here, nevermind Joyce. But he doesn’t voice any of his concerns; it’s not his place.

And he knows this time, he really doesn’t want to fuck it all up. So he licks his lips, hefts his supplies a bit higher in his arms and gives Joyce a questioning look. 

“I’d tell you to take your shoes off, but, well,” and she gestures him in. He doesn’t comment on how haggard she looks, doesn’t comment on the demons he can very nearly see, hanging all about her. The metaphorical ones, the ones that took up residence in her empty spaces when she saw Bob torn apart, when she had to inject her son with dangerously potent drugs; they’re so stark, now. They’re in her eyes and the set of her hips; they’re like his own, held just at bay, but threatening to drown her. 

There’s a poetic kind of fucked up sadness in that, too. Their matching, emotional scars.

Maybe that’s why he wants to be with her, close by. Maybe because they’re some of the only people who can understand what they’ve been through, why they are the way they are. Joyce Byers might just suit him right down to his toes, and isn’t that a wild thought?

He glances over at her as he dumps the bundle in his arms and untwists the bags from around his wrists; their gazes hold for a fraction longer than he thinks is really necessary. And then it’s so easy, a hop, skip, and a jump from there to him feeling like he’s back in high school, looking at him, desperately wishing she could read his thoughts.

Because he can’t say any of this aloud. Not yet. Maybe not ever. 

But if this is what it takes to see the tension ease from the set of her shoulders, if this is what gets her to stop, even for a moment, then he’d come by here every day. If she let him, if she asked, he’d come here every day, just to be near her. But he’s chickenshit and won’t bring it up and she never asks. So it’s once a week, supplies and take out, sometimes a six pack, and he has the handy ruse of knowing how to install hinges and find a good, sturdy stud, to bring him around. 

“I get my check on Friday,” she mentions, voice just a shadow wavery; her hands reach for a crumpled piece of paper atop the bookcase. She smooths it out while avoiding his eyes. “I can reimburse you.”

“Or,” he says with effort, as he kneels down to arrange his supplies. “You could heat me up some of that meatloaf you made the other day and we can call it even.”

“How’d you know I made meatloaf?” the slightly suspicious note in her voice pricks his ears, and he finds himself smiling, turning on his knees to face her.

“Jane.”

“Oh,” Joyce flushes, just a bit. “She liked it? I couldn’t tell.”

Hopper grunts a laugh, gives a definitive nod. “It’s the first thing she’s said she’s enjoyed outside, of, you know… the waffles. Thank Jonathan for dropping her off at home, wouldya?”

And it’s that, the mention of home, that his home is Jane’s home, that further softens the smile on his face. Fuck, this is all a lot of good things happening at once. He’s not sure how to handle it, so he drops his gaze from hers, and crumples up a plastic bag, ending the too-tender moment. 

“Well,” Joyce smiles down at her shoes, looking for a moment all of fifteen, and he remembers her at fifteen. The memory twists in his gut as he tries to right himself on his axis; too many good things, all at once. He’s not used to that. 

With a little, bashful purse of her lips, Joyce shrugs, “Right, then.”

She retreats to the kitchen and he makes a mental plan of what he wants to attack first. He considers getting started on tearing up the carpet, but that’ll take hours, and it’s already rounding on six, so he settles for replacing the hardware on the doors, and hauling some of the many bags full of debris out to his truck. 

It’s quiet in the house, otherwise. Joyce has the oven going, the house filling up with warm, rich scents of food cooking. She’s going through a stack of bills, punching numbers into a calculator with the back of a pencil. Hopper only realizes that he’s been staring when she brings the rubber eraser up to her mouth and bounces it off of her bottom lip.

It feels all too domestic, he in the living room, working on the door jambs, and she in the kitchen preparing dinner. It’s dangerously close to something he suddenly realizes that he desperately wants. 

Too many good things all at once…

He’s surprised to find he feels completely unmoored, as though feeling even the smallest shred of happiness is something so foreign that he can’t adapt. It takes him a moment to get his breath back, to fully comprehend how seeing her simply sitting at the kitchen table, paying the bills, has arrested his attention. 

It’s not that she’s stunning, or that his desire has overwhelmed him; it’s the simple fact that she’s able to carry on, to attend to what needs attending, even as the world around her is fraught with upheaval. And fuck if that isn’t impressive and moving.

She’s been through hell – they both have, they all have – and yet she continues on. There’s something there that he craves, in her resilience, like maybe if he gets close enough, some of her will bleed into him. Maybe he can be good again, too.

It’s a ridiculous thought, selfish too, but he acknowledges it as true: he wishes he could be half the person that Joyce Byers is. A sudden, impulsive, rush of thoughts bowl him over, insistent in their validity: he wants to cook her dinner, fix her car, make her laugh. A lot. Every day. He wants to make her laugh every damn day.

Too much, too much. 

“Why’re you looking at me, Hop?” she asks, can’t manage to play it cool and keep her gaze forward. When their eyes meet, he almost feels like blushing. 

“Not,” he says, the word sticking in his throat at being caught out. “Staring into space. Thinkin’.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then he can hear the smile in her voice. “I’m not giving you a cigarette,” she says, dipping her head towards her work. She moves her hair behind her ear, and something in his chest clenches in a stupidly saccharine way. 

Fifteen, he thinks. How did we get here, between fifteen and now, an she’s still… she’s still… 

“You have some?” he asks, instantly proud of his ability to keep his voice even, sound playful. But he’s clutching at the excuse to talk to her, because recently, every time she opens her mouth to say any damn thing, he feels flayed open.

“No,” she says, voice full of pride, but she doesn’t look up, scribbles something onto a pad of paper; it’s a small blessing because he’s sure that if she did look at him, she’d be able to decipher the myriad of feelings he’s being pummeled by. “I quit too.”

“Oh, did you?” comes his tease as he slides into the chair opposite her. “Sure about that?”

“Dead sure,” Joyce confirms, poking at his wrist with the end of her pen. “‘Sides, saves money.”

“That,” he plucks at a bill on the top of the pile and spins it in front of him; she quickly snatches it back. “Is true.”

He knew how to do this once. He knew the ins and outs of the dance, knew what to say and how to act. But years of relentless pain had taken that away from him, scrubbed him down until he was hollow. Now he just feels wrong-footed, and alien, a human being who doesn’t quite think he deserves happiness.

And if he doesn’t deserve happiness, she really needs to stop smiling at him, because it’s making his head all fuzzy and the air he breathes too thin. 

Two years of knowing one another after twenty-odd years of not knowing one another, and so, he doesn’t know how they stand. If they ever stood. High school feels like eons ago, and for some reason, he feels as though he should think those years didn’t count. They were just about as close as kids could be without giving it up, but sharing cigarettes and borrowing homework and drinking bad whiskey by the light of a bonfire didn’t mean much, twenty-five odd years later. But he finds himself clinging to those memories, memories that he hasn’t thought of since god knows when.

Since before Sara. Since before Diane, even. Before he realized that being a big city cop wasn’t at all like they made it seem on television. 

Briefly, he wonders about kismet, if everything led him back to here. Resentment roils like a living thing, resentment for thinking that at all, for thinking that the death of his daughter, losing his wife, would lead him here, on the brink of feeling something again. 

Not on the brink, bud, he acknowledges. Well and truly past the brink. No turning back. 

And what’s more is that she’s brittle too, does her best to hide the rough edges, but he sees it better than anyone. Can’t help but see it. Maybe, if the universe was as karmic as he thinks it is, their shitty, broken pieces will actually fit together. 

The faucet leaks, fat drops pinging echoes in the quiet space. His fingers itch desperately to cradle a cigarette between them, to give him something to focus on other than the things welling in his chest, the rapid-fire thoughts colliding in his brain.

He swears to god, he’s drowning, a thousand other cliches, too, until he manages to put voice to thought. 

“How are things?” he asks quietly, so quiet that it startles Joyce into looking up. 

It hangs, painful and awkward, a starter sentence, an opening. 

“Things?” she pauses, licks at her bottom lip. There’s not time for her to parse words. “They’re shit. Not as shit as they were but… it takes awhile. I still haven’t…” Joyce locks up, like she shouldn’t be talking, like the floodgates are just about to burst. Her gaze flits to the window, looks out into the inky nothingness of night, and he knows she’s thinking about Bob.

In what world wouldn’t she be?

“It was a…” And fuck, what do you say after that, after drudging up pain you’d never intended to, with someone you never, ever want to hurt. His cheek jumps, and he feels entirely awkward, wrong. “A nice service.”

A laugh, that’s something. “That’s what you’re supposed to say,” she whispers. “And you don’t have to say anything. Just, you really don’t. It’s better that way.”

“Okay,” he breathes, nods, really fucking gets it, “okay.”

She’s nodding as she continues. “It’s the guilt, you know?” Joyce’s voice is a bit more forceful now, as she returns her gaze to him. “It’s uhm, before. Just before, I didn’t know if I was going to… well, nevermind.”

“It’s…” God, he wishes he had a beer, he really does. A beer, a smoke, fucking anything. Settle his nerves, maybe make the words slip out easier. He’s forgotten entirely how to do this. “You can tell me. You know. If you … want to talk about it.” 

Joyce gives him a glance as though he’s insane; he’s not entirely sure that he isn’t. 

Eyes wide, Joyce glances over at the oven and then back at him, as though she’s not sure she heard him correctly. “I know,” he placates, “Coming from me that’s uh, not a great offer but.” The ‘t’ sounds hard and clipped in the stillness of the kitchen. 

That elicits a watery smile, and she sits there for a moment with his offer. He hopes she’s mulling it over, hopes that she’s taking the offer seriously, because he wants her to take him seriously. He wants her to know, unequivocally, that she can count on him.

“He did it for us. He uh,” she rubs her lips together a few times. “You know? He did all of that for – he saved us. And I.” Clutching her hands in her lap, her head tips forward, voice dipping to a rasp. “He was a good man, and I didn’t love him.” 

The words land with a thud between them; he hears them echoing in his ears.

Her mouth moves, like she wants to continue, but can’t. Jim desperately wants to speak, to say anything, but he can’t seem to form words either. “God, am I horrible?” it comes out thin and desperate, wobbly. “I’m terrible, jesus. I … he saved us and the only thing that I can think about is … we didn’t deserve it. I didn’t. At least.”

Her eyes dart, left and right, left and right, as though she’s searching for meaning or solace in her words. It’s the precursor of a panic attack, he knows.

He reaches out to touch her arm, thinks better of it, rests his hand palm-up on the table. “No, no, hey. Hey, you’re not, you could never be terrible. It’s... “

The heels of her palms go to her eyes and press in, hard. Too hard. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t, don’t do that. Not…” With one deep breath, he forces the words out, “not with me. Don’t apologize to me. You’re… we went through all of this together and. You never have to apologize to me.” He does take her hand, then. Pries her left wrist away and smooths his thumb over the pulse there; she acquiesces, opening.

“Hop…” Her grip shifts from barely-there to a vice in just a moment.

“For anything, Joyce. Not for a single, damn thing. Okay?”

Joyce’s right eye twitches; there are tears welling there. “Why do you keep coming here, Hop?” she shoots back, out of nowhere, wriggles her hand away. “Is it penance? Because I can’t take it. I don’t deserve it.”

“Joyce,” He doesn’t know how not to touch her, so he slides his chair around the table, closer to her, side-by-side. “Stop.”

“I don’t,” a jagged little thing, spoken so concretely that it makes his heart break.

“I keep coming here,” the volume of his voice begins to rise and he pauses, takes a breath. “Because I want to help. And that’s it.”

She nods her head this way, that, brings her hands together into a tight ball in her lap. When she raises her eyes to him, they’re clear and open. “That’s it.” A statement hinting slyly at a question. 

She’s staring at him, eyes hard and questioning and no, he can’t lie. He just can’t lie to her now. “Alright, no. Okay? I come here…” A harsh breath through his nose, and his head is spinning and he didn’t really consider how this would go, if they ever really got to this part. He’s flying blind, feels a little sick to his stomach. “Because you’re here. And that’s it. That’s why I come here.”

“Well, it is my house,” she starts, self-deprecating and stuttery. 

That causes a brief smile; god, she’s as terrified as he is. But now that the floodgates are loosed, and the admission makes him feel much more like he’s treading water, rather than in over his head, he presses on. “Because I want to be around you. Just… be around yah. Talk. Damn, Joyce, I…” He’s hoping she’ll say something, break this ridiculous diatribe, but she just stares. He feels too hot, like he’s burning up. “Why do you keep opening the door?”

Her face blanches but she remains silent.

That was unfair of him to ask.

“Why do you think…” His tongue passes over his lips, and he gives up entirely. All in. “I told you to call me. Call me, first. Because… shit, because I want to protect you. I, I want to be the one you rely on. I… because there’s something inside-ah me that… I miss the hell out of you when you’re not around. I-”

“Hop,” she rushes, in a whisper. “Jim, just-”

“Got half a mind to tell you, here and now that you’ve kinda knocked me sideways.” Heaving in a breath, Jim nods to himself. “Half a mind to tell you that…” 

“Christ, Hop, if you’re about to tell me that you’re in love with me let me get out the good scotch because that is so crazy, so insane, I couldn’t handle that sober,” comes her attempt at levity, buoyed by a manic little laugh. A desperate attempt, because maybe she feels as dangerously close to tipping right over the edge as he does.

“Hmmm,” he sighs, scrubs at his beard and leans his forearms on the table. “Maybe ah, get the scotch.”

The kitchen is entirely still; he’s not even sure that she’s breathing. Her mouth is open in a surprised ‘o’ and her hands have gone limp against her thighs. He knows not to push, knows that he needs to give her some time to let it all sink in.

Christ, even he needs a minute. “My timing is shit, I know, I uh,” shoulders rise and fall in a helpless shrugs. “Didn’t expect to, you know.”

“Jesus, Jesus, Hop,” she says as she stumbles to standing. She’s over, turning off the oven and and searching deep within a cabinet before he can even process that she’s not beside him any longer. 

“Look, if this is.” He pauses, sighs again. “It’s. It is fine. That you. You know, if you’re not. But I don’t want you to think that I won’t keep coming by or helping out with-”

She spins on him, two mismatched glasses in her hand. “Stop it. Just, stop it. You can’t expect me to just,” she gestures wildly with the glassware. “Give me a minute. You need to. Jesus, give me a minute. You can’t just do that and!”

Joyce juggles the bottle with the glasses and gets them all onto the table, hands shaking. He reaches over to help but his hand is batted physically away, as she does her best to fill pour them both a finger without spilling. 

She’s already downing hers as she pushes his towards him. She pours another, sighs, moves to lean against the sink. Joyce stares down into her drink, shaking her head all the while, as he knocks his back. He doesn’t know what to do, so he reaches for the bottle, pours himself another, forgives himself this transgression. Cuts himself the tiniest of breaks.

“The boys will be home soon,” she says, and it sounds out of place and forced.

He’s not sure if she’s just speaking to speak, or if she wants him gone. “Yeah.”

She holds her scotch up in front of her eyes, stares at it. “I-since when?” Joyce interrupts herself.

“When what?”

Joyce flings her arms wide, and thankfully her glass is empty again. “All of, of this! When did you…”

He rolls his eyes, not at her, but at the absurdity of the question. When didn’t he, that was what she should be asking. Put on the spot, his thoughts begin a chaotic cyclone in his head. “I don’t know! You want me to nail down a time for you? I don’t know! When did I realize it? Well jesus, Joyce, probably sometime between high school and now? When you… you just don’t let things go! You’re bullheaded and, and, and stubborn! And you just never shut up, and god, you want to help! You always want to help and you just… never stop talking, it’s never quiet, I always hear your voice. In my head. Always.”

Joyce’s eyes are wide, but she says nothing. 

“It’s… fucked up. It’s bad timing. But it’s all true. Didn’t necessarily wanna tell you tonight, or, or ever, but ...” He places his empty glass gently down on the table and reclines back, open, and waiting. 

There’s silence that stretches on for an age.

“So what were you going to do?” Joyce says, eventually. She’s doing that thing, being vague, acting like he knows what the hell she’s talking about. Drives him absolutely batty. He loves it. 

 

“What?!”

She pushes on, “Just be a coward, not tell me?”

He never has the upper hand with her. Not that he wants it, not that he needs it, but he finds that she’s always knocking him on his ass. Surprising him. Leaving him with the distinct impression that he’s missed something entirely and needs desperately to catch up. “I’m confused, what do you want me to say here?”

“I don’t know!” Joyce throws up her arms and stalks across the room to him. “Why did you have to-”

“You asked!” he very nearly shrieks, helpless. 

“What about Marissa?”

“What about her!?”

“You know exactly what I mean, Hop.”

He can feel it, gnawing in his gut, the urge to deny, to rise to what he would once have thought as bait. But after everything they’ve been through, it’s plain as day that it’s not that. She’s not trying to goad him into an argument. It’s sheer terror at being another in a line, at being cast aside, even after all of this. She trusts him with her kids, with her home, with her secrets, he knows that, but can she trust him with her heart?

“Joyce,” he releases a long breath. “You know me.”

“Do I?”

“Think I’d say any of this otherwise? Do you really think that I’d do that to you?” And it’s not accusatory, but an invitation to examine what exactly she’s asking of him. He can’t tell her that she can trust him, she has to come to that realization on her own. 

The side of her mouth lifts, as though a shrug, and she all but collapses into the chair directly across from him. “I don’t…”

“You do know,” he says back, surprised to find his throat a bit tight. “Hope you know, anyway.”

Joyce taps at her empty glass and then tips her head forward, fingers sifting into her hair and tugging. “Even if you gave me a guide, step-by-step… I wouldn’t know how to do this. Not with you.”

A rumble of a laugh startles out of him. “Funny, was thinking the same thing about you.”

She gives him a sad smile. “I just… don’t know how to do this.” She pauses, tips her head this way and that, shrugs. Her voice dips towards something intimate. “You told me that it gets better, bit by bit.”

He nods, once, and his tone matches hers. “It does. Takes time. S’only been a few months.”

“Do the nightmares go away? The terror? Thinking that it’s going to happen again? Because that’s never going to go away, for me. I’m never going to be normal.” Her gaze flits to him, briefly. “I’m not normal, Hop.”

“Hm,” comes his part-sigh, part-laugh. “I don’t know if they ever go away, I dunno. Never have for me.” He runs his fingers over his beard again as he leans in, over the table, closer to her; she leans over as well. “And not to be an ass, but Joyce… I know that. And after… after everything, who wants normal? Who needs it?”

Joyce stares at him, open and clear and blows a hard breath through pursed lips. It feels like an eon before he speaks again. “I miss you when you’re not here.”

The admission startles him, and he sits back a bit, as if it had been a physical blow.

And then Joyce is off, her shoulders lifting and falling as she rushes through speech. “I wonder, wonder when you’re going to be back and I. I think about. How you helped us. But not just that. How… you just know. What to do, and… you never once, not once thought I was crazy. Not once.”

It’s true, he hadn’t; he’d assumed she’d been struck by grief, but he’d never thought of her as crazy. 

“And lately, I don’t know, I’ve been thinking about, jesus, about high school, and Sunday school and the people we used to be and the people who we are now. And honestly, I don’t know if. If. ...if I’d have made it out the other side of this without you.” Her cheeks are flushed and she’s looking at him as though she’s frightened by the power behind her words. “You make me feel safe.”

And that, that resonates with him, hits him like a stun to the chest. “You make me feel safe. You’re… christ, Joyce you’re… indestructible.” Reclining fully, he rests his hands on the tabletop. “And yeah, I don’t know where I’d be without yah.”

Joyce squeezes her eyes shut, presses her mouth into a firm line, rocks a little, back and forth on her behind and says, “You love me?”

“Yeah. I’m in love with you.” It sounds like he’s dying, like the words have to rake themselves over jagged peaks and through valleys to reach her ears. 

“Okay,” she says once, nodding, her eyes still squeezed shut. “Okay,” and then she’s standing, moving around the table. It’s a compulsion and he’s moving, too, doesn’t know why, twisting on the seat so his legs are towards the sink and she’s rushing between them, gentle hands on his face. “I’m… scared,” she admits, smooth and easy.

“Jesus, let’s be scared together, okay?”

Joyce nods, bends the scant distance between them and presses her mouth to his. 

His hands shake, reach up to touch her but hesitate. Joyce breathes, warmth cascading over his upper lip and when she let’s out a little sigh of “Okay,” against his mouth, he cups her hips with his palms.

Gently.

Cautious. 

Her hands plant on his shoulder, briefly, and then are back against his cheek, feeling almost desperate, tipping his head just so, changing the entire personality of the moment. It deepens, stretches, and he finds himself gripping onto her as though a life preserver. 

Joyce pulls away, presses her forehead to his; they breathe together.

“This… complicates things,” she says, but her voice is light.

“Yeah.”

“I’m not mad… I’m just,” Joyce pats his shoulder and takes a step back; she’s silent.

Hopper sighs, let’s his fingers ease away from her hips, rests them on his knees. “Slow and steady, Joyce. I think, all things considered… we try and take this… slow and steady.”

Her eyes smile first, and then her lips url up, and he finds that he’s smiling too. “Yeah, that’s… that’s good.”

“Good.” 

She bites her bottom lip and takes a step back, “Want to… eat overdone meatloaf and pretend like this is going to be easy? Just for tonight?”

“Only if I can eat it with ketchup,” he laughs, slapping his hands on his thighs and standing.

“You’re disgusting.” Her answering eyeroll is what does it, sets in stone for him that this is going to be so difficult, but so entirely worth it. 

She’s a fighter. 

He’s a fighter.

And now they’re in this together.


End file.
